How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Smoke

An optimistic take on California’s future.

LNU Lightning Complex Fires, just getting started, as viewed from my afternoon run in Helen Putnam Regional Park in Petaluma, CA. Looks like a mushroom cloud, no?

Now that the rain has finally closed the chapter on California’s vicious 2020 fire and smoke season, a little reflection is in order from a longtime resident. Especially as friends and family ask me why I continue to live here.

First, some context. In 2001, I road tripped from Connecticut to California to live the dream. The attitudes were perpetually optimistic, epic nature was accessible year-round, and anyone could build houses anywhere. The magical possibilities were infinite.

Nearly 20 years later, it’s clear the California vision sold to me — and millions of others — was an unsustainable, false bill of goods. A heaping dose of climate change-induced factors soured the contract even further. But I’m not holding a grudge. Because California was meant to burn. Let’s not feign ignorance by the fire and smoke events of the past five years. A quick trip to the metaphorical library could have taught any of us that:

• “Between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California.” [source]
• “California was a very smoky place historically [and]…it’s still probably less than what used to be burned before Europeans arrived.” [source]